“Because she loves me.”
“But if she loved you, she’d want you to be happy and find what you need to find.”
“She’s afraid I won’t come back. She won’t. .” He trailed off, and the rhythm faded.
“Won’t what?”
“She won’t let me go,” he whispered.
“Is that important?”
“Very.” He sat up straighter, and his wings clinked. “Those particles are the key to understanding everything, aren’t they?”
Uri merely gave the serene smile. He set the medallion aside, breaking the half fugue.
“If I understand the particles,” Gavin said slowly, “I’ll understand the universe. Become ‘one’ with it. And that’ll cure me because the secrets won’t burn out my mind anymore.”
“Yep, yep.”
Gavin blinked, surprised. “No mysterious questions? No strange double-talk?”
“Nope. You nailed it.”
“Let me see that amulet again.” Gavin took it from Uri’s proffered hand. The design was a snowflake frozen in metal and paint. The two dots of black and white that were themselves designs contained two dots of black and white that were designs, which contained two dots of black and white. They pulled him in and down, farther and farther down. The crystalline lattice that made up the medallion’s structure repeated itself, shapes within shapes, patterns within patterns. The tiniest particles hovered there, dancing in pairs. And what were they made out of? He reached for one of them, and it turned. So did its partner. Incredible. He could go farther down, pry the particle apart, and peer inside. Secrets whispered inside his head, scratching at his mind like an infinite number of cats in their infinite boxes. An overwhelming, endless field of infinitesimal boxes lay before him. It was too much, too powerful. The little bits pulled him in an infinite number of directions, and he had to keep himself together, had to. .
But that wasn’t it. Dad had said he needed to let go, let it flow, accept it. His heart pounded. He was facing his own obliteration. If he let himself fall apart, he would never find himself. Was this what Dad had seen?
The thought of his father brought a slash of anger. He was putting his trust in the man who had turned his back on his family. Sure, the plague had made Gavin do strange things, but he was fine now. Nothing was stopping him from writing-or even coming home. The anger tightened his chest, and Gavin became aware of his breathing, of the cold stones under his backside, of the wing harness dragging at his back, and then he was sitting in front of Uri, the medallion clenched in his fist.
“I can’t do this,” he said.
“I think you were close,” Uri observed.
“No.”
“You’re angry again.”
“I haven’t stopped being angry. I’ve just been hiding it.”
“Your anger is your own.” Uri shrugged. “You can let it go, or let it run your life. That’s your choice, kid.”
“I’m supposed to be helping Alice sneak into the Forbidden City. I shouldn’t even be here.” Gavin rose, stood with one foot over the edge of the porch with darkness below him. “Your bird put me in a fugue, or I wouldn’t have come.”
“So why don’t you leave?”
“I should.” But he hung there.
“Maybe you need to learn something here,” Uri said. “And once you learn it, you’ll be able to help Alice the way you want to.” He held up the medallion again. It was compelling, almost hypnotic.
Gavin sat back down again. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t need to know. Let the universe tell you.” He paused, then reached into a shadow and came up with, of all things, a fiddle case. He opened it. “Do you still play?”
The unexpected question made Gavin feel self-conscious. “Of course I play. I earned money on street corners, bought bread with it because you weren’t there.”
“Play for me.”
“No.”
“If you didn’t want to play, why did you say you still know how? This is a great fiddle. I bought it in San Francisco. Or maybe I stole it. My memory of that time isn’t very good.” He ran the bow over the strings in liquid notes that shot old memories down Gavin’s back. “My old fiddle was better, though.”
“The old one isn’t your fiddle anymore. It’s mine. You left it behind, just as you left everything else behind.”
“Yeah.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “Still, it sure would be nice to hear you play again. It’s been so long. Yep, sure would be nice.”
Gavin hesitated, then relented. He took the fiddle from his father and, still seated, began to play with the moon hanging over his shoulder and turning his wings to mercury.
I see the moon, the moon sees me.
It turns all the forest soft and silvery.
The moon picked you from all the rest,
For I loved you best.
His hands shook as he played. He couldn’t make a mistake, not in front of his father on his father’s instrument. It had never occurred to him that he might one day play for Dad, the man who had admonished him not to make mistakes. He slowed the song, but that only made things more difficult.
I have a ship, my ship must flee,
Sailing o’er the clouds and on the silver sea.
The moon picked you from all the rest,
For I loved you-
His left hand twitched on the final note. The fiddle squawked, and there was no way to recover. Gavin corrected and replayed the note, but the damage was done. He stopped playing and felt the heat rise to his face. He wanted to fall backward off the edge of the porch and let himself crash to the rocks below. But he sat with his head bowed instead, waiting for the inevitable harsh words.
Uri sighed. Of course. The terrible playing deserved that exact reaction.
“I remember that song so well,” he said. “Your mother loved it.”
Gavin’s head came up. “I messed it up at the end. It was awful.”
“Perfection doesn’t exist, kid. One mistake doesn’t ruin the whole song any more than a single ripple ruins an entire stream.” Uri touched Gavin’s arm. “You play it better than I ever did. No wonder that Alice girl fell in love with you.”
Something broke inside Gavin at those words, something he couldn’t define. Chains he hadn’t known he was carrying fell away, and he wanted to weep for the lightness.
“Maybe I should try again,” he said hoarsely. “Where’s that medallion?”
But as he was reaching for it, a familiar silver nightingale encrusted with jewels zipped under the overhang. It landed on Gavin’s shoulder. He clapped a hand over it, and it was as if Alice were standing next to him. He missed her with a deep intensity that made this place feel all the more foreign. Uri cocked his head and touched the brass bird on his own shoulder.
“Is that one of mine?” he said.
“Probably. It belonged to the emperor’s nephew.” He pressed the bird’s right eye.
“Gavin, where did you go? We need you!” Short pause. “I need you.”
The nightingale fell silent.
“She has a pretty voice,” Uri said. “Reminds me of your-”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Gavin warned. “Not even in your head. I need to go.”
“You coming back?”
Gavin, who had already gotten to his feet with the Impossible Cube, paused and said, “Do you want me to come back?”
“The Dao teaches us that once you become one with the universe, there are no needs, no wants, no desires. Everyone has to follow his own path, and it doesn’t always travel where we-”
“Fuck the Dao, Dad. Do you want me to come back or not?”
Uri fell silent. He took the fiddle into his lap. Gavin watched him, trying to stay dispassionate. The two Dragon Men stood on the mountainside, surrounded by flowing water; one with wings and one without; one with a fiddle, one with the Impossible Cube; one older, one younger. The universe hung balanced between them. Gavin held his breath, and even the water seemed to slow.